"There is a boy dancing, who in this light is the most desirable thing he has seen. His thin shoulders white as papyrus, light from the fire reflecting sweat on his stomach, nakedness glimpsed through openings in the blue linen he wears as a lure from neck to ankle, revealing himself as a line of brown lightning. . . . A boy arousing himself, his genitals against the colour of fire."
This passage is taken from Michael Ondaatje's popular novel "The English Patient", dropped matter-of-factly into the narrative without explanation by the author, and as far as I can tell, never referred to anywhere else in the text. It's a passage that probably many readers don't recall. A passage that doesn't register. Until it hits home just what Michael Ondaatje is talking about behind all that beautiful language.
It hit home hard this week with the news that a man from my community--a man I had worked under--had been arrested and indicted on multiple counts of child pornography. What he is accused of doing staggers the imagination. I just cannot picture someone I know doing something like that. I don't want to think evil of anyone. And it is true that in the United States you are innocent until proven guilty. But the FBI has been working on this case for quite a long time. This is not the local Mayberry cops. This is bad. Real bad.
Already the wolves are howling and screaming for the blood of this monster. But I know this man. I can't picture him as a monster. But if it is true that he did what they claim he did then I really don't know what else to call him. As an asexual person I have enough trouble with normal sexuality--this is so far off the scale I really can't relate. I do not understand such lust, whether it is dressed up in beautiful words as in "The English Patient" or more crudely in front of a webcam. "A boy." "A boy." A child. "The most desirable thing he has seen."
I told the leader of the book club why I could not continue reading "The English Patient." She did not recall the passage in question. But what Ondaatje is doing is making child-lust something normal, something inconsequential. Nestled within his novel, its sordidness is safely hidden. Why? What is going on here? Why is this scene here? What does it have to do with the story? You don't toss things like that out and blithely go on. This is not a minor thing, to look upon a child with sexual desire. This character, this man who will become the English patient, is sitting at a desert campfire watching a young boy masturbate. That's what all those flowery words mean. This man is a voyeur and a pedophile. But because it's poetically written, nobody notices.
I do not want to cause offense to anyone who is a member of the LBGT community, but it does bother me when I hear talk that sexual orientation is not chosen, but is something we are born with. I don't want to come across as homophobic in any way. But I think we need to talk about what happens when someone's sexual orientation is toward children. After all, they are also born that way, they don't choose that lifestyle. These people cannot change their orientation any more than the rest of us. What do we do with them? Lock them up for the rest of their lives? Euthanize them? "If let out they will only keep doing it, going after children."
This is what I find disturbing about passages like the one I just quoted. Is this a subtle way of getting us to include pedophilia as just another orientation? God, I hope not. But child pornography is a BIG, BIG, business. This story was remarkable only because it happened in my community to someone I know. This is only one man. Every day on the news I hear other stories like this. Someone is producing this stuff and others are eagerly buying it. People you would never suspect. They are in the closet now. How long before they demand to come out of the closet and join the rest of us who aren't "straight". Do we really want them in our ranks, marching at our Pride Days? This is something the LBGT community needs to address as do all of us.
This passage is taken from Michael Ondaatje's popular novel "The English Patient", dropped matter-of-factly into the narrative without explanation by the author, and as far as I can tell, never referred to anywhere else in the text. It's a passage that probably many readers don't recall. A passage that doesn't register. Until it hits home just what Michael Ondaatje is talking about behind all that beautiful language.
It hit home hard this week with the news that a man from my community--a man I had worked under--had been arrested and indicted on multiple counts of child pornography. What he is accused of doing staggers the imagination. I just cannot picture someone I know doing something like that. I don't want to think evil of anyone. And it is true that in the United States you are innocent until proven guilty. But the FBI has been working on this case for quite a long time. This is not the local Mayberry cops. This is bad. Real bad.
Already the wolves are howling and screaming for the blood of this monster. But I know this man. I can't picture him as a monster. But if it is true that he did what they claim he did then I really don't know what else to call him. As an asexual person I have enough trouble with normal sexuality--this is so far off the scale I really can't relate. I do not understand such lust, whether it is dressed up in beautiful words as in "The English Patient" or more crudely in front of a webcam. "A boy." "A boy." A child. "The most desirable thing he has seen."
I told the leader of the book club why I could not continue reading "The English Patient." She did not recall the passage in question. But what Ondaatje is doing is making child-lust something normal, something inconsequential. Nestled within his novel, its sordidness is safely hidden. Why? What is going on here? Why is this scene here? What does it have to do with the story? You don't toss things like that out and blithely go on. This is not a minor thing, to look upon a child with sexual desire. This character, this man who will become the English patient, is sitting at a desert campfire watching a young boy masturbate. That's what all those flowery words mean. This man is a voyeur and a pedophile. But because it's poetically written, nobody notices.
I do not want to cause offense to anyone who is a member of the LBGT community, but it does bother me when I hear talk that sexual orientation is not chosen, but is something we are born with. I don't want to come across as homophobic in any way. But I think we need to talk about what happens when someone's sexual orientation is toward children. After all, they are also born that way, they don't choose that lifestyle. These people cannot change their orientation any more than the rest of us. What do we do with them? Lock them up for the rest of their lives? Euthanize them? "If let out they will only keep doing it, going after children."
This is what I find disturbing about passages like the one I just quoted. Is this a subtle way of getting us to include pedophilia as just another orientation? God, I hope not. But child pornography is a BIG, BIG, business. This story was remarkable only because it happened in my community to someone I know. This is only one man. Every day on the news I hear other stories like this. Someone is producing this stuff and others are eagerly buying it. People you would never suspect. They are in the closet now. How long before they demand to come out of the closet and join the rest of us who aren't "straight". Do we really want them in our ranks, marching at our Pride Days? This is something the LBGT community needs to address as do all of us.
